by KD McCrite
Isabel drew her scrawny self up straight and tall and opened her mouth, but Ian shook his head at her. She snapped her mouth closed with a splat. She blinked a dozen or so times, but she kept her yap shut.
“That’s right,” Ian said to Daddy “Do you have any resources at all?” Daddy asked.
Ian made a face like someone had stomped on his foot. “Not a one,” he said. “As I said, we sold everything except for a few clothes and our car. This place seemed about as affordable as we could find. Of course, I’ve wanted to move out here for a while, so I didn’t mind the transition. But I didn’t know the house—”
“Of course he didn’t see this place before he bought it. Once again, he took someone else’s word for something.” Isabel spat this out for the edification of us all, then closed her lips real tight again.
Daddy looked at that shiny black car, which actually wasn’t so shiny with all the dust on it. That car would never be shiny again except when it came fresh out of the car wash.
“What d’you reckon is the market value for that Caddy?” Daddy asked quietly.
“What?!” Isabel sounded like an old laying-hen.
Ian eyeballed the car. “Mike, we need a car, even out here in the sticks.”
“It doesn’t have to be that particular car, does it?”
Ian winced again.
“No, I guess not.” You could tell it was like pulling his toenails up through his gizzard just to say it. “But it’s not even a year old.”
“Why don’t we take ’er into Larry’s Auto Sales in town and see what fair market value is? Then let’s visit the lumber yard and see what you can get for the same money.”
“But how are we supposed to get around if we sell our car?” Ian said. “How am I going to look for work?”
I took a gander at ole Isabel and wondered if she ever worked a day in her life without wearing a tutu and funnylooking shoes. Given the shape, length, and design of her fingernails, not to mention her general attitude, how could she have? Oh brother.
“Well, that’s what I want to talk to you about,” Daddy said.
Ian looked at him without blinking for a long minute. Then he stuck his hands in his back pockets and leaned against his thumbs, just like Daddy. Maybe getting back to his roots as a farmer wouldn’t be so hard for him.
“I’m listening,” Ian said.
I glanced at Mama, who was smiling. Then I looked at Isabel, who just stood there and said not one blessed word. But she listened so hard her ears practically stuck out.
“I’m willing to make you a trade,” Daddy said. “I’ll give you this old truck right here straightaway, plus my muscle and hard work fixing up this house, traded for your muscle and hard work on our farm this summer and fall. Not only that, but I’ll talk to the other farmers around here, and if you’re willing to help them some, I’m sure they’ll lend a hand to work on the house too. It’s a good old house, structurally sound, and there’s no termite damage. I don’t believe it’ll take as much money to fix up as you might think.”
Ian’s mouth wagged between open and half-shut like the loose door on our mailbox during a windy day.
“Now, you have to understand that none of us can do anything on your house until summer work is done,” Daddy continued. “My wife can always use extra help in the house this time of year. Our garden is producing more than we can eat, so your wife’s help to put up the harvest would be a blessing. Then come winter, when the work on your place is all done, you’ll have yourselves a cozy little house, just as snug and tight as all of us can make it.”
“Oh, and you’ll be staying with us until this house is ready for you to move into,” Mama added. “What do you say?”
Nobody asked me, but I’d say, “Run! Run, Reilly family! Run for your lives!”
Neither of the St. Jameses said a word. Instead, they looked like someone had either given them an early Christmas present or had pulled down their drawers in front of the preacher. With them two, it’s hard to tell.
Sometimes I wished Mama and Daddy didn’t have such bighearted ideas.
FOURTEEN
Ian and Isabel
Move In
Having the St. Jameses move in was not the most fun I have ever experienced, let me tell you. Not only did my bighearted parents give their room to those two West Coasters, but my sister had to move into my room with me so Daddy and Mama could have her room. Good grief.
Maybe the two of them thought they didn’t have a lot of clothes and stuff, but they like to have never stopped bringing in suitcases and wardrobe bags. And I’d hate to see how many shoes Isabel left behind, ’cause she sure as the world brought a million pairs with her into our house.
Where’d they plan to wear all that stuff, anyway?
The next day was Sunday, and you should know that we Reillys always go to church on Sunday unless we’re sick.
At the supper table that evening, Mama invited the St. Jameses to go with us the next morning. Well, remembering how they acted at the mere mention of saying grace at the supper table, I knew how this was gonna turn out.
Isabel sucked her own used cigarette smoke back into her big mouth and nearly choked to death. That was her reply.
Ian bugged his eyes, then squirmed and shifted on his chair and said, “Er . . . er . . . no, thank you. We aren’t church people.”
“I understand,” Mama said.
“Yes, of course, we understand,” Daddy added, “but it would be a good way for you to meet some of the other folks in the community. A lot of the men who’ll work on your house go to church with us. I’m sure they’d like to meet you.”
“Well . . .” Ian glanced at his missus, who'd have shot him dead if her eyeballs had been a pair of six-shooters. “Maybe another time,” he finished, and he didn’t look at Isabel again for a good while.
Here’s the thing as I saw it: Ole Ian sat at that table and scarfed down hamburgers and fried potatoes and baked beans and Mama’s good-neighbor chocolate cake like there was no tomorrow. Daddy was giving them our good ole pickup, which he dearly loved because he bought it new a long time ago, and now he’d have to buy another one—and they got to sleep in Mama and Daddy’s king-size bed. Now, after that, wouldn’t you think the Very Least those St. Jameses could’ve done was go to church and meet some of the people who were going to help them even more? Didn’t their folks ever teach them how to be grateful, for Pete’s sake?
When we were getting ready to leave for church the next day, Isabel and Ian were both snoring away.
“They’re just exhausted,” Mama said.
Baloney.
Wouldn’t you know Myra Sue pitched a fit to stay home on Sunday too? When Mama told her no, she started whining, “But someone needs to be here when they wake up. I can fix their breakfast and coffee and make their bed and everything.”
“Oh brother,” I hollered. “You don’t even make your own breakfast. And have you ever in your life made coffee, pray tell?”
“Don’t be dumb!” she snarled, pinching me.
“Girls,” Daddy said. “It’s Sunday. Act like it.”
Well, I’ll tell you something. I’d rather go to church and live there full-time, even when it’s empty and spooky, than be at home one day with the St. Jameses there. I was not offered that option.
As that week passed, however, it turned out that the deal Daddy made with Ian worked out well, because ole Ian was outside and away from the house most of the day. It was kinda funny to see him in Daddy’s jeans and work shirts instead of his tailored trousers and spiffy shirts. After a day or two of the sun scorching his face and his bald spot, he took to wearing a billed cap from the Farm and Tractor, where Daddy buys his farm supplies. Every time Isabel looked at him, she sort of shuddered. One thing for sure, he didn’t look like a slick banker man anymore.
Isabel turned out to be pretty worthless. That woman’s main activity besides sleeping late and smoking and griping about the heat and putting down the intelligence and class of
people who live here—most of whom she has never met, by the way—was stretching and bending and doing twirly dance steps out on our big front porch.
Myra Sue joined her the very first day, and those two knotheads would have jumped around to Jane Fonda’s workout videos and exercised every waking hour of the day to tapes of Wham and Rick Astley and Blondie if Mama didn’t break it up and assign some chore to my sister. She didn’t say much to Isabel other than a gentle hint that some help would be appreciated.
Let me tell you something. People like Isabel St. James don’t take hints. She dragged herself out of bed at the crack of noon quite frequently, and let me tell you, she was not a sight for sore eyes. Then, when she took a bath, she was in there so long it was like she was determined to drown herself. Her and her mister quarreled a lot. There was one day when I overheard Mama and Daddy talking to the St. Jameses in voices that were supposed to be private. Now, I couldn’t hear exactly what was said, but the gist was this: Stop all that fussing and cussing in our home. I’m sure my folks said it in nicer terms than that.
That little conversation worked—for a while, anyway, ’cause them two fightin’ St. Jameses got along for a little bit. Or they pretended to. Either way, it was a break for my ears.
All this nonsense went along for another week; then one morning, Mama said to me, “Better get scootin’ on over to Grandma’s, April Grace. It’s Tuesday.”
I was wolfing down cinnamon toast and scrambled eggs.
“But, Mama, Mr. Rance has took her to town a million times lately,” I said.
“He has taken her to town,” she corrected.
“I know! So she don’t need me.”
Mama was washing jars because she planned to can beans that day. The gigantic pressure cooker sat on the stove like Old King Cole. She looked at me over her shoulder.
“I declare, I’ll be glad when school starts again. You talk as if you’ve never heard proper grammar. As much as you read, it seems to me you’d pick up on language rules.”
I sighed, then shoved in the last bite of toast.
“Grandma doesn’t need me,” I said. “She has him. Or is it ‘she has he’?”
Mama gave me a look that clearly said she did not appreciate my attempt at humor.
“And where’s ole Myra Sue, anyways?” I asked. “Doing stomach crunches and twirly-toes on the porch with Isabel?”
For a minute, I figured I was in trouble for being sassy again, but what she said was, “April, why are you so cranky? Are you feeling all right?”
I shrugged. I’d probably never feel all right again for the rest of my life, or until Ian and Isabel moved out, whichever came first. I like excitement and fun as much as the next kid, but I have to tell you, those past two weeks with all the ruckus had been rough on my world.
“Your sister is picking beans,” Mama told me.
I brightened. “All by herself?”
“Yes,” Mama said. “She dillydallied about getting her chores done yesterday, so today she picks beans. And I don’t want you helping her. This is her punishment.”
Aw, shucks. And I was hankering to pick beans from the itchy, old bean vines out in the broiling hot sun.
Just about then, the door to Mama and Daddy’s bedroom opened, and you could hear the scuff-scuff of Isabel’s feet as she shuffled down the hall and into the kitchen. Boy, oh boy, she looked spookier than she had that day Mama invited her and Ian to live with us. This morning she wore a slinky robe that she hadn’t bothered to tie and a nightie so sheer you could practically see her gallbladder and spleen. In one hand, she clutched her cigarettes and lighter.
“April Grace,” Mama said, pouring a cup of coffee. “Better get a move on. And bring in that basket of green beans on the porch, will you, honey?” She put the coffee in front of Isabel and said, “Isabel, have you ever snapped beans before?”
The woman drew herself up straight. “I have not,” she said, looking outraged that she had been asked such a question.
Mama smiled grimly. “Well, this is your lucky day. I’m going to show you how. There are enough to keep you and Myra Sue busy until tonight, if not tomorrow, as well.”
Some things are worth seeing, but Mama said, “April Grace, your grandmother is waiting for you.”
I was about halfway across the hayfield to Grandma’s house before I stopped laughing.
FIFTEEN
Going to Town
When Crawling in a
Hole Is a Better Idea
Mr. Rance’s pickup truck, as big and red as sin itself, sat in Grandma’s driveway. For a minute I was glad to see it because that meant I wouldn’t have to ride while Grandma endangered the drivers of Zachary County.
The old man stood in the yard, big black Stetson hat pushed back, arms akimbo, eyeballing Grandma’s yard and house like the place belonged to him. As I got closer, I saw that he squinted up into the branches of the humongous old oak tree where my swing hung.
Daddy had made the swing for me and Myra Sue a long time ago. He said it was just like the one his daddy had made him. It hung on a thick, stout rope and had a broad, wooden seat. I loved that swing and dearly hoped Mr. Rance wouldn’t decide to park his broad carcass in it, because he’d not only break the swing but probably uproot the whole tree while he was at it. He turned and stared at the field that stretched out all wide and grassy.
I paused right where I was, ’cause I didn’t want the old feller to see me, let alone talk to me. I needn’t have worried. He was busy eyeballing Grandma’s house again. It looked to me like he was trying to see through the windows without actually going to the house. Then he went slinking around the side of the house to the little carport where Grandma parks her 1977 white Corolla.
I followed at a distance, like a coyote watching the rancher. He didn’t see me, ’cause if he had, I don’t think he woulda opened the passenger door real quiet-like or dug around in the glove compartment like he did.
So I, April Grace Coyote, decided to approach the scent of Old Spice.
“Whatcha lookin’ for?” I asked from about six feet away.
He jumped so high and so hard, he knocked that black Stetson right off his goofy old head. He turned to look at me, his face red, eyes flashing. Right quick, he grinned real big.
“Wal, howdy there, young’un!” he bellowed, grabbing up his hat from the backseat where it had fallen. “Lemme see, now, your name is . . . uh . . . Tommy! No, it’s Joe! Wait a minnut, now. It’s George Henry, ain’t it?”
By then, I knew he believed that acting as if he thought I were a boy was the greatest joke of 1986.
“Ha-ha!” I said. “So what are you looking for?”
He blinked, then looked down at the bunch of papers in his hand. He pulled out an Arkansas state map and waved it around and stuffed the rest back in the glove box. He closed it good and tight.
“Got it right here! Lookin’ for a road map ’cause your granny and I might want to take a little drive.”
It was a likely story in the biggest imaginary way, and it wasn’t anything I could argue with, especially since he had the map in his chunky old hand.
“Where you planning to go?”
He guffawed. “Now, if I told you, you’d tell her, and it wouldn’t be a surprise.”
I just looked at him. He grinned like he was as honest and trustworthy as our preacher. I wanted to go inside, but I knew better than to walk away while someone was talking to me. The last thing I wanted to do was apologize to Mr. Rance the way Mama had made me apologize to the St. Jameses.
“Well, let’s go inside.” He got out of the car and closed the door nice and quiet. “Now, don’t you say a word to your granny, or you’ll spoil my plans for her. Okay?”
I hated to agree with him because it went against everything I felt inside, but there was really no reason not to, and I didn’t want to ruin a nice outing for Grandma.
“Okay,” I said. But it wasn’t easy.
“Now, lemme see,” he said as we walked to the
house. “Is this here swing yours or yer granny’s?”
“It’s Grandma’s. It’s her favorite thing to do after we finish playing with the hula hoop.”
I thought he’d bust a gut laughing, and I hurried into the house before he could call me Paul or Jason or Billy Bob. The old man thundered in right behind me, and it was like he filled up the whole entire house. His voice sure did. In fact, his voice nearly knocked the picture of Jesus in the Garden right off the wall.
Grandma sat at her kitchen table, going over her grocery list.
“I’m thinkin’ about apples!” he boomed before I could say, “Top o’ the mornin’,” or even “howdy-do.”
“I believe there’s a couple in the icebox,” Grandma said.
“I don’t mean them kind of apples. I mean apple trees. An orchard.”
Grandma looked up, kinda puzzled. “Woo?” she asked.
“I thought maybe about twenty or so acres in apple trees right out there.” He pointed toward the east.
Grandma looked at his pointy finger and frowned.
“I got a couple of plum trees, and that’s enough,” she said. “I don’t want to fool with any more fruit trees. Not at my age.”
He grinned, great big and toothy. “You won’t have to fool with ’em. That’ll be my job.”
“Why would you do that?” I asked him.
“That’s what I’m wondering,” Grandma said.
“What?” he yelled at me. I don’t think he even knew Grandma spoke.
“Why not plant trees on your own place?” I said real loud.
“’Cause the number one crop on my place is rocks. That there land right out there is good soil, not so rocky.”
“Jeffrey!” Grandma said, trying to get his attention.
“I’ll order ’em right away from Stark Brothers,” he told us, “and they’ll send ’em at planting time. We’ll dig a water line out there and—”
“Jeffrey!”
“—I’ll put in a irrigation—”
“Jeffrey Rance!” Grandma hollered loud enough to stop traffic on Highway 542.
